Eze.6:1-14, Remember, loathe yourself and know 2

Eze.6:1-14, Remember, loathe yourself and know 2
2. I will save the remnant (8-10)
 The God of grace leaves a remnant, a holy seed, a holy stump, a remnant who truly believe in and follow God. Even in the midst of God’s strict judgment (1-7) due to idolatry, He leaves a portion of the people of Judah. ​​He makes the remnant proclaim God’s righteousness and lead them to repentance, so that they may take charge of the uninterrupted redemptive work. Vs.8-9. Who are the remnant? 1) Those who listen to the word, remember the word, and remember God. Verse 3, Listen to the word of the Lord. Ps.66:5, “Come & see,” 66:16, “Come & listen.” God has given us a recipe for our lives. If we follow this recipe, we can eat delicious food. God has given us the Bible, the recipe for a blessed life. If we live according to this guide, we will live a life that pleases God. A life that lives according to this recipe, the Word, is the remnant. They remember that they worried God because of idolatry. They remember that they left God with a spiritually obscene heart. They remember that they served idols with a spiritually obscene eye. So they remember that God’s heart was hurt because of them who worshipped idols. 2) And I am the one who laments myself. God, please forgive me, this sinner. I have committed a heinous sin. I have done truly abominable evil. I beat my chest, repent, and return to God. I am the remnant. The Oori Bible translates verse 9 as follows. “...how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.” In other words, they will repent. They will detest their sins. They will remember all the abominations they have committed while being taken captive to Babylon and subjected to its oppression, and they will shudder and repent. They will repent in the midst of their suffering. Such suffering is blessed. Ps. 119:67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” 119:71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.” The prodigal son in Luke 15, when he was suffering from hunger in a faraway country, thought of his father and his home and turned back. Israelites’ hearts turned away from God, and their eyes turned away from God and pursued idols. They remembered how sad and angry idolatry, which was spiritual fornication, was to God. So they loathed themselves. They remembered that God was worried because of their sins, and they became humble, lamented, and repented. They abhorred their sins. This is truly important. We must see our own wrongdoings, lament, and repent. If we try to make excuses or show hypocrisy, we will be completely ruined.
3) Those who remain are those who know God as Jehovah. “10. Then they will know that I am Jehovah, for I did not say in vain that I would bring this disaster upon them.” Having felt God’s terrible judgment with their whole body, they look back on their sinful lives and acknowledge that they are receiving the punishment that God has justly brought upon them. In the end, God is glorified through their repentance. Those who remain experience that God is Jehovah, the master of history. They realize that God acts according to His word and is Jehovah who redeems us. May we all remember God as the remnant of God, repent of our sins, and live blessed lives experiencing Jehovah God.
*Application question:What kind of God do I know, and how am I living as the remnant before Him?
*Application question: The Bible describes the idolatry of the people of Judah as “fornication and adultery.” Are we neglecting this idolatry, which is more serious than physical adultery and causes soul sickness, because it is invisible? (9, Lev 26:1, Deut 4:28)

3. I will destroy idolaters (11-14) 
 11-14, 11. "Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and say, " 12. "I am the Lord. "And God will bring wrath upon them." That is, God is wrathful about the people's rebellion and idolatry. Ezekiel stamps his feet and claps his hands to express God's extreme anger and sorrow. Because the sin of idolatry is an abominable evil, God will destroy them by the sword, famine, and pestilence. Those who are far away will die by the pestilence, those who are near will fall by the sword, and those who remain and are surrounded will die by the famine. Thus I will bring my wrath upon them. 13-14, God will cover the seven places where they worshiped, the idols and the altars, with the corpses of those who died under His judgment (13). Just as they did to the seven places where they had covered their lives with idols. He will defile the seven places where they had worshiped idols. Israel was addicted to idols. How heartbroken must God have been? How happy would God have been if they had been addicted to God? How happy would they have been? On the day when Jehovah’s judgment comes upon the people of God who were addicted to idols, they will finally know that God is Jehovah. In other words, the reason God declares judgment on them is so that they can know Jehovah. We cannot know Jehovah God through meditation or philosophy. We can only obtain it through the work that God does and Jesus Christ, our only way. God is not a God who speaks empty words. He fulfills what He says. The sad thing is that they came to know Jehovah through God’s judgment. How wonderful it would have been if they had lived in God and lived a blessed life before being judged. No one in the world can escape God’s righteous judgment. In verse 14, God says that He judges the entire land from the wilderness to Diblah. The wilderness refers to the southern part of Judah, and Diblah refers to the northern part. God judges all of Judah. In fact, about five years after Ezekiel made this declaration, Judah and Jerusalem were invaded by Babylon and were besieged for 18 months before being destroyed. And one-third of the land was taken captive. The last king, Zedekiah, saw his three sons executed, and was taken to Babylon with his eyes gouged out and tied up with ropes.
*Application question: The place of idolatry that was once filled with splendor and carnal pleasures is now filled with the smell of rotting corpses. But are there still people around me who are unable to escape from the place of idolatry without knowing the end? What can I do for them? (6:13, Isa. 47:8,9, 2 Pet. 2:13)

What is the lesson that God gives us today?
1) The God of justice thoroughly judges sinful humans. This is because God is just and omnipotent. The history of mankind has been a repetition of human sins and God’s just judgment on them since the fall of our ancestor Adam and his sin. Many countries that created brilliant civilizations in the world were eventually judged for their sins and destroyed. It is God’s principle of governance that the people of Judah, chosen by God, also receive just judgment and are destroyed. This righteousness is also the standard for eternal life and eternal punishment at the time of the great judgment after the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, in order to be saved from eternal destruction, the saints must strive to escape from the place of sin and live a life that is satisfied with God’s righteousness. However, since humans with original sin cannot be completely righteous in the eyes of God, the saints can only attain salvation by obtaining spiritual righteousness through the righteousness of Christ who redeems all of human sin.
2) Here, God’s thorough judgment is emphasized, but it also says that during this righteous judgment, some are left behind (the remnant) and made into witnesses of God’s righteousness. In other words, God shows that God’s redemptive history is never interrupted by His thorough intervention by making some of His chosen people the remnant who will continue the history of redemption. This is a fact proven throughout the Bible. That is, the whole world was corrupted just before the judgment of the flood, but because there was Noah, who was righteous in the eyes of God, his family of eight was able to survive the judgment of the flood (Gn.8:18-19). In Elijah’s time, all of Israel worshipped idols, but there were 7,000 people who did not serve Baal (1Kings19:18). In this way, God preserves the remnant. Today, we have become children of God by believing in Christ. We have been able to join the ranks of salvation. These are also those who have been given the important mission of continuing the history of redemption by God, who intervenes at every moment of history. Therefore, the saints should be thankful to God for calling them the main characters of the history of redemption, maintain their faith until the end, reveal God’s glory, and fulfill their mission well.
Dear saints, 1) We can please God or hurt His heart. Rather than hurting or angering God, let us strive to please and glorify His heart by being filled with the Holy Spirit and the Word like a waterfall.
2) Let us offer our sincere devotion to God with our eyes and ears. Let us not fall into idolatry by pretending to believe in God but falling into superficial faith that loves other things more or syncretism that loves worldly things more.
3) I bless you to remember God and His wounded heart as the remnant even in the midst of Jehovah’s judgment, to lament and repent, to know Jehovah, and to work for God’s kingdom. Amen.